Legal Definitions - leave year

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a federal law in the United States that provides eligible employees of covered employers with the right to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specific family and medical reasons without fear of losing their job or health insurance benefits.

A leave year, in the context of the FMLA, refers to the 12-month period during which an eligible employee is entitled to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave. For military caregiver leave, this entitlement can extend to 26 weeks. Employers have the flexibility to define how this 12-month period is calculated, and their chosen method determines when an employee's FMLA leave entitlement resets. Common methods include:

• A calendar year (January 1 to December 31).
• Any fixed 12-month period (e.g., a fiscal year, or an employee's anniversary year).
• A 12-month period measured forward from the date an employee's first FMLA leave begins.
• A "rolling" 12-month period measured backward from the date an employee uses any FMLA leave.

To be eligible for FMLA leave, both the employer and employee must meet certain criteria:

• Employer Eligibility: Generally, private employers with 50 or more employees, all public agencies (local, state, and federal), and all elementary and secondary schools are covered by the FMLA.
• Employee Eligibility: An employee must have worked for the covered employer for at least 12 months (these months do not have to be consecutive, though breaks in service longer than seven years may not count). They must also have accumulated at least 1,250 hours of service during the 12 months immediately preceding the leave, and work at a location where the employer has 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius.

Qualifying reasons for FMLA leave include:

• The birth of a child or the placement of a child for adoption or foster care.
• To care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition.
• For the employee's own serious health condition that makes them unable to perform their job.
• For any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee's spouse, child, or parent is a military member on covered active duty or call to covered active duty status.
• To care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness if the employee is the servicemember's spouse, child, parent, or next of kin.

While FMLA leave is unpaid, employees typically retain their health insurance benefits, though they may be required to continue paying their portion of the premiums. Upon returning from FMLA leave, employees are generally entitled to be restored to their original job or an equivalent position with the same pay, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment.

Examples of Leave Year Application:

• Example 1: Calendar Year Leave Year

  Scenario: A large tech company designates its FMLA leave year as the standard calendar year, running from January 1st to December 31st. An eligible employee, Maria, takes 7 weeks of FMLA leave in April to recover from surgery. Later that year, in November, her elderly father suffers a serious fall, and Maria needs to take additional FMLA leave to care for him.

  Explanation: Since the company uses a calendar year, Maria has 12 weeks of FMLA entitlement available between January 1st and December 31st. After using 7 weeks in April, she has 5 weeks remaining for the rest of that calendar year. If her father's care requires more than 5 weeks in November, she would exhaust her entitlement for that specific leave year. Her full 12 weeks of FMLA leave would then reset on January 1st of the following year.

• Example 2: Rolling 12-Month Period Backward

  Scenario: A manufacturing plant uses a "rolling" 12-month period measured backward from the date an employee uses FMLA leave. John, an eligible employee, took 8 weeks of FMLA leave in August of last year to care for his newborn child. This year, in June, he needs to take leave for his own serious health condition.

  Explanation: To determine how much FMLA leave John has available in June, the employer looks back 12 months from that date. The 8 weeks he used in August of the previous year would still count against his 12-week entitlement for the current "rolling" 12-month period. Therefore, he would have 4 weeks of FMLA leave remaining. As time progresses, the weeks used further in the past "roll off" the 12-month window, gradually freeing up more entitlement. For instance, once August of the current year passes, the 8 weeks he took last August would no longer count against his current 12-month rolling period, and his full 12 weeks would become available again (assuming no other FMLA usage within the new rolling 12-month look-back).

• Example 3: Fixed 12-Month Period (Non-Calendar)

  Scenario: A school district defines its FMLA leave year as July 1st to June 30th, aligning with its fiscal year. Ms. Chen, an eligible teacher, takes 9 weeks of FMLA leave in March to recover from a medical procedure. In May, her child is placed for foster care, and she wishes to take additional FMLA leave for the placement.

  Explanation: Ms. Chen's FMLA entitlement of 12 weeks resets every July 1st. Having used 9 weeks in March, she only has 3 weeks of FMLA leave remaining until June 30th. If she needs more than 3 weeks for the foster care placement in May, she would have to wait until July 1st for her full 12-week entitlement to become available again for the new leave year.